State, university and the right to higher education in Argentina today

Abstract

The central question guiding this presentation is how the State is currently being reformed in Argentina and what its role is in defining and regulating educational policies to guarantee rights, within a complex global and regional context marked by the rise of neoliberalism, the far right and neofascism. After three five-year periods of social rights expansion, interrupted by the government of Mauricio Macri; President Milei's far-right administration has implemented policies that reduce the State's role, produce a structural adjustment of public spending and gradually withdraw support for education, increasing educational inequality and the commercialization of the sector.
The recent Bases law, approved by the National Congress, grants the president extraordinary powers, makes the labor market more flexible, promotes privatizations, and reduces the size of the State, particularly affecting acquired rights. The new administration's educational policies have degraded areas such as education, science, technology, and culture, severely impacting their continuity and interrupting initiatives aimed at universalizing access, supporting educational trajectories, and improving quality, while dismantling their technical teams.

The effective fulfillment of the right to education is now a budgetary problem, thus a political one, but a symbolic issue as well. The government's actions against education, science and culture reflect an anti-democratic stance, one of censorship and disdain for critical thinking, labeling any position different from the official one as indoctrination. In order to defend democracy and the right to education, it is crucial to understand current political-educational phenomena and strengthen the ethical and political position in their protection.